How We Get Blessed for Doing God’s Will

As I go through experiences in my life, I feel like I should share my takeaways, the lessons learned, and the fresh perspective in hindsight.

A big part of what makes me “The Wise Soul,” is the experiences I’ve had in my life and the advice that I’m sharing daily with those I come in contact with. If I can inspire someone to feel better about themselves or move on from something that’s holding them back, that’s when I’ve accomplished something, more than just showing you a cute dress to buy. I hope to continuously integrate this in different and exciting new ways as we go along this journey.

Today, I felt inspired to touch on an experience I had a couple weeks back.

There are moments in our lives where we are at a crossroads, and it feels like we have no idea which direction to go. Sometimes all of the choices seem good. {Can I just choose: D. All of the above?} When these moments happen, {and man, have they happened a lot in the past couple of years} I always get out my pros and cons list and try to be as honest as possible. I write out the best & worst case scenarios for each choice. Then I listen to what my gut is saying and try to make a decision. I then go pray about it, saying “this is my decision..can You confirm if it’s right?” And the truth is, sometimes I don’t get an answer. And you start to think, can you just please let me know?!! But we aren’t put on the earth to be complete robots. We have to choose, sometimes without complete guidance. Sometimes, both of the choices are okay in His sight and He’s leaving it up to us. We can’t always sit around and wait for an answer to come; sometimes we just have to choose and pray that He’ll stop us if we aren’t on the right pathway. Take a leap forward in faith. Fear is the opposite of faith. Fear causes us to be indecisive and to stay stagnant. That’s not what He wants. Take action.

So, for many weeks, I lost sleep over a decision. The truth is, I knew what God wanted, but I was way too stubborn to let go of my will. I didn’t want to do what God wanted me to do. I knew that if I gave up my will to Him, I would be letting go of dreams I had worked for and hoped for my entire life. My plans would be ruined, my stress levels would rise exponentially, and I just wasn’t going to have it. It took watching LDS General Conference to finally soften my heart and help me realize the bigger picture. It was still tough to let go of my strong grasp on my dreams, but I let my guard down, and said, “Okay, if this is what You want, I’ll do it.” Now, I don’t feel like going into details about what I was letting go of and what I was doing, but I had to wait to hear back if this life change was actually going to happen after I had initially put in the beginning work. The night before I heard back, I said one of the most sincere prayers I’ve ever said, saying, “Whatever is supposed to happen, please let it happen. Let it work perfectly as it should.” The next day, I found out…that it didn’t work out. What I wanted to happen..happened. And I was pretty ecstatic, but at the same time thinking, “wait, why did I just go through of all that for nothing? Why did You ask me to do it?” I breathed a sigh of relief that all was going to work out just as it should and pondered why I would feel inspired to go for something, if it wasn’t going to work out.

Last week, I realized, that what I experienced was an extremely watered-down version of the story of Abraham and Isaac from the Bible. If you don’t know the story, you can read about it or brush up on it here. I feel God didn’t necessarily care about the outcome. He cared where my heart and priorities lied. So at the end of the day, Abraham was able to keep his son. I can’t even imagine how he felt. I got a tiny glimpse of it when I was able to keep my dreams and plans {which sounds very ungrounded and materialistic, but are more than that, I promise}.

God tries all of us. It is not for His own knowledge; for He knows all things beforehand. He knows all your lives and everything you will do. But He tries us for our own good, that we may know ourselves. -George Q. Cannon

I gained a little bit more strength in my testimony and in God that day. I realized that He loved me and knew my desires. He also wanted to try my faith.In the end: I don’t share any of this to brag or say, “look at me! I’m so righteous!” because I’m definitely not perfect or holier than anyone. I’m a sinner who keeps on trying, as Nelson Mandela said.

I share this to say, when you’re stubborn, realize that God has the whole picture, not you. And He knows that in the end, it will work out, perfectly as it should. A little bit of sacrifice, an inch of inconvenience is nothing in comparison to what He has done for us, but it does add up to something. Submitting your will to His, is not always easy, but it is worth it. I promise you that.

I would love to hear your thoughts and any experiences you’ve had on this topic. Thanks for reading!